meditation on this occasion? But this conjecture is reduced almost to certainty by a few words incidentally dropped at the end of the chapter; for having lifted up his eyes and beheld the camels coming, and the servant, and the maiden, Isaac "brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and took Rebekah and she became his wife, and he loved her, and was comforted after his mother's death."*

The agreement of this latter incident with what had gone before is not set forth in our version, and a scene of very touching and picturesque beauty impaired, if not destroyed.

* Genesis, xxiv. 69.

F

VI.

We have now to contemplate Isaac in a different scene, and to remove with him (after the fashion of this earthly pilgrimage,) from an occasion of mirth to one of mourning.

Being now grown old, as he says, and "not knowing the day of his death," he prepares to bless his first-born son, "before he dies."* So spake the Patriarch. This looks very like one of the last acts of a life which time and natural decay had brought near its close; yet it is certain that Isaac continued to live a great many years after this, nay, that probably a fourth part of his whole life yet remained to him-for he was still alive when Jacob returned from Mesopotamia; when even many of Jacob's sons

* Genesis, xxvii. 2. 4.

were grown up to manhood who were as yet in the loins of their father;* and even after that Patriarch had repeatedly migrated from dwelling-place to dwelling-place in the land of Canaan. For " Jacob," we read

when all these other events had been related in their order, " came unto Isaac his father, unto Mamre, unto the city of Arbah, which is Hebron, where Abraham and Isaac sojourned."+

How then is this seeming discrepancy to be got over? I mean, the discrepancy between Isaac's anxiety to bless his son before he died, and the fact of his being found alive perhaps forty or fifty years afterwards? My answer is this-that it was probably at a moment of dangerous sickness when he bethought himself of imparting the blessing -and I feel my conjecture supported by + Ibid. xxxv. 27.

Genesis, xxxiv. 5.

the following minute coincidences.

66

That

Isaac was then desirous to have " savoury meat such as he loved," as though he loathed his ordinary food: that Jacob bade him" arise and sit that he might eat of his venison," as though he was at the time stretched upon his bed; that he " trembled very exceedingly," when Esau came in and he was apprised of his mistake, as though he was very weak; that the words of Esau, when he said in his heart "the days of mourning for my father are at hand," are as though he was thought sick unto death; and that those of Rebekah, when she said unto Jacob" should I be deprived of you both in one day," are as though she supposed the time of her widowhood to be

near.

I will add that the prolongation of Isaac's life unexpectedly (as it should seem,) may

have had its influence in the continued protection of Jacob from Esau's anger, the latter, even in the first burst of his passion, retaining that reverence for his father which determined him to put off the execution of his evil purposes against Jacob, till he should be no more. And this affection seems to have been felt by him to the last; for wild and wandering as was his life, the sword or the bow ever in his hand, we nevertheless find him anxious to do honour to his father's grave, and assisting Jacob at the burial.* The filial feelings therefore which had stayed his hand at first, were still tending to soothe him during Jacob's absence, and to propitiate him on Jacob's return; for the days of mourning for his father were still not come.

* Genesis, xxxv. 29.